


no emotional baggage just big bags filled with jackets

by seventhstar



Series: if you wanna i might 'verse [5]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, Clothing, Domestic Fluff, Established Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Jacketgate, M/M, Post-Canon, Victor "Addicted To Coats" Nikiforov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 05:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17892494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: Viktor owns a ridiculous number of coats but never wears colors. Yuuri is confused.





	no emotional baggage just big bags filled with jackets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pickleweasel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pickleweasel/gifts), [Elenca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenca/gifts).



> https://twitter.com/starofseventh/status/1096918437325168640
> 
> Viktor wears four different coats while in Barcelona. I love him so much.
> 
> (Sidenote: people keep trying to correct me on Viktor's coat on the beach being Yuuri's, so for the record: Viktor wears the same coat and scarf in episode 3 during Onsen on Ice, and Yuuri's jacket in episode 10 is a different color, a different style, and is relatively short. If that's your hc, that's 100% cool.)

"Yuuri, can you get my coat? The brown one."

"Which one? You have five brown coats."

"The camel-colored one?"

Yuuri eyes him skeptically. Viktor sighs.

"Third from the left."

Finally, instructions that make sense. Yuuri sorts through Viktor's coat collection--at least it's color-coded--until he finds what he thinks is the right one. It looks kind of flimsy to him; he snags a scarf out of a drawer.

"Here."

Viktor reaches for the coat as Yuuri starts to hold it up for him to put on. For a moment, he thinks it's too much, but then Viktor turns and lets Yuuri help him into it.

Yuuri thrusts the scarf into Viktor's hands. It's a warm green color, and Viktor wears it all the time, so he must like it. "You'll get cold."

Viktor drapes the scarf around his neck obediently, without pointing that he's lived here for twenty years or that Yuuri's being weird. Living with Viktor has made Yuuri hyperaware of all his bad habits, all his little acts of self-absorption. Viktor hasn't said that the mugs Yuuri leaves on the coffee table or the way he never makes the bed annoy him, but Yuuri knows they do.

So Yuuri's sort of defaulted to imitating the most selfless couple he knows: his parents.

He clips Makkachin's leash on; she's panting at the door, eager to go out.

"Where are we going?" Yuuri asks. He holds onto the leash as they step out into the hall and make their way outside.

"Just down to the water. Makkachin likes it.”

“Sounds good.”

St. Petersburg is full of rivers. Yuuri still gets turned around, even though he’d lived in Detroit with no problems. There are too many bridges. More than once he’s taken Makkachin out for a walk and then relied on her to show him the way home.

Viktor takes his hand as they walk.

“Hey,” Yuuri asks, “why don’t you wear colors?”

“I wear colors.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I have a shirt that’s red.”

“You own like twenty coats in brown and black and grey. You own three brown ones that are exactly the same.”

“They’re not the same. One of them is beige, one is tan, one is like—” Viktor gestures vaguely, “umber.”

“Two of them are exactly the same. I looked.”

“Just because two things are the same color doesn’t mean they’re the same style.”

“Are you sure you didn’t buy two identical ones because you forgot you already owned one?”

The silence between them is long. Viktor stares determinedly at the water of the Neva; Yuuri could mistake him for one of his posters, except that Viktor’s mouth is twitching like he’s trying not to laugh.

“…should I wear colors?” Viktor asks. He does smile then. “Do you want me to? I can if it’s important.”

“What? No, it’s not important. I just wondered.” Yuuri shrugs. “It didn’t seem like you, that’s all.”

“Mm.”

They wander alongside the river, the sky grey above them, Makkachin stopping to sniff things. Yuuri thinks he must have said the wrong thing, somehow, from Viktor’s pensive expression. Maybe this is one of those things that makes Viktor inexplicably sad, like a certain brand of wine or an empty picture he has stashed in a empty drawer in the kitchen. Yuuri stumbles onto them and finds himself trying to puzzle out their meaning.

“I used to dress much flashier,” Viktor says. He stops, and looks out at the water again. “It was fun. But as I got older, I wanted to be taken seriously. And I…”

“…and you?”

“I wanted to feel like I was in control.” Viktor shrugs, and he leans into Yuuri; on his other side Makkachin butts against his leg. “So I cut my hair and I completely changed the way I dressed.” He laughs. “Did you know that if your clothes all look the same, the tabloids can’t get photos of you?”

“Wait, really?”

“It looks like the same one over and over again. That’s why I wear the same outfit to practice all the time.”

“Did it help?” Yuuri reaches out to touch a strand of Viktor’s hair. He remembers speculating about Viktor’s haircut in an embarrassing, adolescent way. He’s never asked about it. Thinking of all the media coverage of Viktor he devoured as a child, he feels guilty.

“A little. And I liked the way it looked, and it was easy. I could focus completely on skating. Why change it?” Viktor winks. “Unless you want me to, of course.”

For a moment, Yuuri sees that same glimpse of sadness in Viktor’s face.

“You always look incredible,” Yuuri says. It comes out too earnest. “And it makes sense. If you only own clothes in black and white, you can fit all those identical brown coats in your closet.”

“They’re not identical!”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Viktor takes him back to their apartment—when did Yuuri start thinking of it as their apartment?—holding onto Yuuri’s hand all the while. If he holds on a little tighter, and if Yuuri hangs on, too, standing too close and bumping shoulders with him, no one but him is there to notice.

 

* * *

 

“I got this for you.”

Viktor blinks at him. Either Yuuri is even more incoherent than he usually is in the morning, or Viktor is confused at having a sad-looking paper bag shoved at him before he’s brushed his teeth. _I probably should have wrapped it so it looked less like I dumpster dived for it._

“You…got me groceries?”

“No, I put it in there to hide it from you.”

“Oh.”

Viktor fishes it out of the bag, then unfolds the tissue wrapping. He holds them up to the light.

Yuuri hadn’t realized at first that the huge, soft scarves were scarves. He’d assumed they were smaller throw blankets, ideal for dogs. Viktor owns a lot of scarves, and Yuuri has no impulse control and still feels vaguely guilty about shaming Viktor for only wearing, in Viktor’s words, ‘tasteful neutrals’.

One of them is a dark blue. The other one, which Yuuri had agonized over even as he handed the cashier all his money, is a very pale lavender. In other circumstances, Yuuri could plausibly pretend that it’s white. But Viktor will notice, and possibly think Yuuri is secretly judging him or something.

Viktor rubs the scarves against his face. “Oh,” he says again. “Wow, what’s the occasion?”

“Nothing,” Yuuri mutters. “It’s just to thank you for letting me live here…”

“Is it for our honeymoon?” Viktor asks. He holds the scarf up to the light. “Are we going somewhere cold? Is it for bondage?”

“What? Why would you—no!”

“The last time you gave me a gift to,” Viktor does actual, literal air quotes, “’thank me’, it was an engagement ring.”

“I had five minutes to plan that proposal,” Yuuri says. He acquired Viktor’s hand in marriage the same way he’d acquired these scarves: by going into the first store with something shiny in the window. It didn’t occur to Yuuri until after he paid for the rings that Viktor was standing right there, beside him, watching him buy a set of wedding bands. At that point, not proposing had not been an option.

“You picked this out for me yourself?”

Viktor fingers the corner of the lavender scarf.

Yuuri nods. “I got a receipt, if you want a different color. They had brown.”

“I like it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. You gave it to me.” Viktor glances at himself in the mirror. “Besides, I feel like a change.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me [on tumblr](http://pencilwalla.tumblr.com/) or [on pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/seventhstar) or [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/starofseventh)
> 
> comments are appreciated!


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